Purpose
As a step toward more firmly establishing factors to promote retention among younger employees
in the hospitality industry, this study aims to focuses on fun in the workplace (fun activities, manager support
for fun and coworker socializing) and training climate (organizational support, manager support and job
support) as potential antecedents of turnover in a European context.

Design/methodology/approach
Logistic regression was used to analyze the impact of fun and training
climate on turnover with a sample of 902 employees from Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands. Data on fun
and training climate were obtained through surveys, which were paired with turnover data from organizational
records.

Findings
With respect to fun in the workplace, group-level manager support for fun and coworker
socializing were significantly related to turnover, but not fun activities. With respect to training climate,
individual-level job support was significantly related to turnover, but not organizational support and manager
support.

Research limitations/implications
As the data were obtained from employees from one organization,
further research would be valuable with additional samples to substantiate the generalizability of the results.

Practical implications
Given the challenge of turnover, organizations should foster informal aspects of fun
in the workplace and learning opportunities to promote retention.

Originality/value
The study examined the fun–turnover relationship in a context outside of the USA where
previous fun–turnover research has been conducted, and it examined fun relative to training climate, which has
not been studied heretofore. This study also investigated group- and individual-level effects of both fun and
training climate on turnover.